The Earth After Rebirth

He walked down their street, none of their neighbours were out. Either they were still asleep or they were off to work already. He was quite used to waking up this early, he had been doing it since Kiro was born after all.

He was headed to town, he decided to walk the distance. The train ticket wasn\'t exactly cheap, he needed to save all the money he could for his family.

It\'d take him roughly 2 hours to get to town by foot. The further he walked, the more clean the neighbourhoods became. Their Area 50 was by far the dirtiest.

Even his nose breathed with a bit of freedom. Not like it bothered him, not really, they were used to it, but the air down there was really polluted. He had no idea why the government left it be.

"Mr. Waynworth, Mr. Waynworth!"

An excited voice called out from a damp and dirty alleyway. Sekani was too familiar with the young man, his name was Philip, he lived in that alley. He usually gave him usable computer parts to sell for food.

"Philip, how\'s it going?" He shook the young man\'s hand firmly without so much as a change in facial expressions, despite how dirty the lad was.

"Not so good sir, now that you\'re out of commission. Things are pretty dire, but we live to survive," he said wearing his boyish grin, revealing yellow and dirty teeth.

His once white skin was black with soot, clearly he hadn\'t bathed in a long time too. The clothes he wore were getting too big for him. His trousers were stopped from falling by a rope around his waist.

"We can only hope."

"That kid of yours, the eldest, it\'s Kiro isn\'t it?"

"Yes," Sekani answered sceptically, his heart raced as he thought of the potential that his son had joined a gang. Did Philip know something about it?

"Strange coincidence..." He trailed off.

"Speak Philip, what do you mean?"

"Ah, a Kiro was mentioned in the billboard news yesterday, has to do with some game. Don\'t you watch the news?"

He sighed with relief, "no, I don\'t watch the news, they never cover anything about us in Area 50, why should I bother?"

Philip told him all about what he heard on the news and what this Kiro did that made him standout and how popular the game had become, that it even made news.

"My son is busy with school, he has no time for games." Sekani chuckled. "The name Kiro isn\'t common, but he can\'t be the only one in our world with one." He shrugged it off.

Sekani beckoned the man to follow him into a nearby pub, he at least felt like he needed to buy him breakfast. He had 20 creds on him, apart from the money Kiro gave them.

Pub food was pretty cheap but also absolutely delicious and they weren\'t picky of who their customers were as long as they could pay. So all sorts of characters came in and out of there.

Sekani paid 5 creds for egg rice with soup and beer for Philip and himself. They sat at a round corner table. Philip devoured his food, as though he hadn\'t eaten in weeks.

Sekani wasn\'t the kind of man to take in strays, but Philip was special to him. He was a junior he worked with at Blakeson Tech. Young people suffered a lot from their sharp tongues, it got him fired, that\'s why he ended up in the streets.

He was also not that old to Kiro. About a 6 year gap.

Since he was under Sekani, he felt personally responsible for the kid. He couldn\'t just abandon him, he couldn\'t bring him to his home either, so whenever he could, he gave him something, so he didn\'t starve to death.

"Why haven\'t you found a job yet Philip? It\'s been 3 months."

"I\'ve given up. You\'ll get why soon enough."

"Come on, clean up and let\'s go job hunting today."

"Okay, pops." Philip said with a toothy grin.

He was quite fond of Mr. Waynworth, if it were up to him, this would be his father. His life had been tragic ever since he could remember though, he was abandoned at birth and never got lucky enough to be adopted.

Sekani was also aware of how much the young man sitting across from him, admired him. He slipped out a lot and called him pops. Which is why he wanted to push him out of here, this was no life for a promising brainiac like him.

He waited while Philip used the pub\'s toilet to clean himself up. He came out looking confusing, he was clean but his clothes were still dirty, so he still had the homeless look about him.

They walked around shops giving their credentials, most shops chased them out the moment they saw the experience they had. Some tried their luck, offering wages way less than the recommended wage.

Once they realised that, these two knew the law surrounding salaries and wages, they got chased out.

"What did I tell you Mr. Waynworth? They\'ll never hire us."

"Well, we wouldn\'t have known until we tried."

Just then, another Asgard video came into the billboard, sure enough it was Kiro vs Isaac. Sekani couldn\'t be sure however, he squinted and squinted to get a better look but he concluded that it wasn\'t his son. It couldn\'t have been. The game was too expensive.

A dreadful feeling seeped in, when he thought, just maybe, he joined a gang and was able to afford one. He shook his head.

"Not my Kiro." He mumbled.

It was about time to go home, as the sun was already at bay. He did groceries for that week, since Kiro told them he\'d give them money weekly. He used 250 on groceries that would last them 2 weeks.

He gave 50 creds to Philip and scolded him not to waste it. He had to keep the extra 200 for emergency funds, he couldn\'t know what might happen.

He rode a taxi home. It was cheaper than trains, but it was still not worth it if you didn\'t have luggage. But he did so he called for one.

He hadn\'t even opened the gate, when Alora opened the door and ran outside yelling \'daddy\'s home.\'

She didn\'t care that he was carrying things, as she jumped for him to catch her. So he did.

"Welcome home, daddy," she said with the most innocent smile.